Holmes Rolston

Holmes Rolston III is widely recognized as the father of environmental ethics
as a modern academic discipline. He has devoted his career to the development of
a philosophical interpretation of the natural world and is regarded as one of
the world's leading scholars on the philosophical, scientific, and religious
conceptions of nature. His body of work and his role as a founder of the
influential academic journal Environmental Ethics have been instrumental in
establishing, shaping, and defining the modern discipline of environmental
philosophy. His richly varied educational career included studying physics as an
undergraduate at Davidson College, then entering theological seminary and
completing a Ph.D. in theology at Edinburgh University, Scotland, in 1958. He
then worked for some years as a Presbyterian pastor before taking a master's
degree in philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. An academic
appointment in philosophy followed at Colorado State University, where he became
a full professor in 1976. Rolston has been of central importance to the
development of environmental ethics as an academic discipline, both as a profuse
writer in the field and as one of the founders of the journal Environmental
Ethics. He has published widely in environmental ethics, including three
important books: Philosophy Gone Wild (1986), Environmental Ethics
(1988), and Conserving Natural Value (1994). Rolston argues that the
natural world carries intrinsic values that human beings should recognize. These
values exist not only at the level of individual organisms but also in species,
ecosystems, and natural processes. The existence of such values means that
humans have duties toward the natural world, including duties to protect species
and ecosystems from destruction. Besides publishing in environmental ethics,
Rolston has also written in philosophy of science and religion more generally,
including his 1987 book Science and Religion: A Critical Survey. Rolston
is associate editor of the journal Environmental Ethics and serves on the
editorial boards of a number of other journals, including Environmental
Values. He currently holds the position of University Distinguished
Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University.